Armed Forces: Capability

Lord Sterling of Plaistow Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sterling of Plaistow (Con)]

My Lords, first, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, for his brilliant speech. A key factor that he commented on is that percentages are meaningless. I am fed up hearing about this famous 2%—it is the capabilities that really matter. We had such a debate on 8 December. I re-read the whole of the debate, which I had the honour to lead. Much of it has been reiterated today. The noble Lord, Lord King, brought up an issue that we spoke about before, and I checked it out. Given that the key factor of government following the Prime Minister’s kissing the Queen’s hand is defence of the realm, it is absolutely ludicrous that we have only had two hours of debate on this issue. I checked with the Library and there has not been an open debate in government time on this subject, with no time limit, in anybody’s living memory. That is ridiculous and I ask the Minister for that to be considered. Leaving myself to one side, we have here so much experience and knowledge, and in these dangerous times it is ludicrous that we do not have such a debate.

This is a wealthy country. On the idea that somehow we have not got the moneys and we ought to cut back, it depends how we want to allocate it, which has been talked about. In practice, of course, it could be allocated. The Treasury does not have the last word about what does or does not happen, any more than a finance director does in a company. Following noble Lords’ comments earlier, if we get it wrong, the public will never forgive us. I would put it more strongly than that. If we get it wrong and the leadership gets it wrong, that would be criminal, to use a strong word—the idea that we cannot possibly have that sort of support. Having said that, with courageous leadership—and it is up to No. 10 and others to take note of what we have talked about today—it can certainly be done. We have said before that we need more moneys. Unquestionably, the real figures are such that to meet even the present programme we need at least another £2 billion a year. Could it be found? Of course it could, if, as I said before, it was said to the chiefs, “I want us to go on to a war footing tomorrow morning”. Of course, they would do a marvellous job, as I have said before, but we would be putting them in a pretty difficult position.

I ask the Minister whether we can have a major debate in due course. I will not go on; I have said it all before and many noble Lords have said it today. There should be a major debate on these subjects, in the interests of the realm.